Meta, Microsoft, and Others Launch Metaverse Standards Group

Meta, Microsoft, and 31 more companies have united to form an organization to promote the creation of open standards regarding metaverse tech. The institution, named the Metaverse Standards Forum, will focus on establishing standards to make each one of the metaverses on the internet interoperable, which would ideally permit these worlds to communicate.

While the metaverse is a loose concept that each company interprets and builds according to its own will, some think it is important to connect these individual worlds. This is why Meta, Microsoft, and other companies like Epic games, have gathered together to found the Metaverse Standards Forum, an organization created to promote the interoperability of these metaverses.

According to the launch PR statement:

[The body] will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards, while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines.

The forum will not create standards by itself. The organization will act as a hub for the amalgamation of different Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) in fields including VR, graphics, and interactions, among others.

The creation of such a group is seen by some as a statement about the consensus in these companies on the importance of creating open standards for the metaverse concept. About this, Neil Trevett, president of Khronos, an organization that is part of the group, stated:

The metaverse will bring together diverse technologies, requiring a constellation of interoperability standards, created and maintained by many standards organizations.

While the group states that it is an open organization, available for all interested groups free of charge, there are some big names that have not appeared in the group. Apple, one of the biggest tech companies in the world with an interest in VR and AR (augmented reality) technology, has still not joined the forum. Other significant gaming-based metaverses, like Roblox, have yet to join.

According to some experts, this shows that even with an organization promoting standards on the subject, the standardization of the metaverse, or the group of worlds composing the metaverse, will be a tough task given the diversity of companies that are building platforms oriented towards it.

What do you think about the creation of the first standardization group for the metaverse? Tell us in the comments section below.